The Other Brothers - Chapter 1

Chapter 1a - Tommy Other

I held my hands above my head, making a triangle, an ‘A’ for ‘attack’.  My friends walked up to my brother.

“Hey, Dicky,” Will called out.

“Shorty,” echoed Kale.

“Richard,” my brother muttered as I snuck up behind him.

“We lost your brother at math class.  He totally disappeared,” said Will.

“Like, whoosh,” said Kale with a large gesture.  I silently unzipped the main pocket of Dicky’s backpack.

“I haven’t seen him,” said Dicky as I pulled his laptop out of his bag.

Dicky started to turn around, but Will saved the mission by grabbing Dicky’s shoulders.  “This is serious, dude!”  I backed away and waved the prize, Dicky’s laptop, above my head.  Both Will and Kale stared over Dicky’s head.  Dicky turned around to see what they were staring at.

His eyes almost glowed red in anger.  “That’s my new laptop!” he snarled.

“Run for it Tom!” shouted Will.

“He’s like really mad, dude,” observed Kale.

Dicky started running for me, so I turned and ran, too.

I jumped through a crowd of people and ran for the exit, smiling at a pretty girl as I went.  She smiled a huge smile, and then turned to her friends, excitedly telling them, “Did you see that?  Tommy Other smiled at me!  He is so cute!”

Dicky was hot on my tail as I rushed through the doors.  As soon as I was out the doors I threw the laptop up in the air.

“No!” Dicky yelled as the laptop flipped way up.  I caught it when it came down.  Kale was there holding two skateboards.  He threw mine onto the ground and I jumped and spun in midair.  I briefly saw Dicky fumbling with his bike chain.  The cute freshman girls gasped and pointed as I waved to them, landed on my skateboard and zoomed away.  Will ran up beside me and tossed me my helmet.  I set it on my head and accelerated down the street.  I glanced behind me to see Dicky gaining on his bike.  I switched the laptop from my right hand to my left then leaned down and grabbed a rock.  I looked behind me again and saw Dicky fumbling with his helmet.  He thought I was going to throw the rock at him.  Just another block.  I looked at Dicky to see that the helmet thing had slowed him down.  There it was; the Wilson’s dog’s house.  I threw the rock and it crashed through the dog’s roof.  The dog rushed out of his house.  I really put on the speed.  Then, I heard the sound of screeching brakes, sliding tires, and Dicky yelling.  I turned around and rolled backwards for a while.  Dicky was warding off the crazy dog.  His bike was five or six feet down the road.  I laughed at the stupid dog trying to eat Dicky’s shirt.  I continued home, feeling just a little bit as confident as I always acted.

The whole thing was a competition, I guess.  I would invent new ways to steal Dicky’s laptop and hide it before he got home.  I gauged my intelligence by how long it took him to find it and whether or not I actually made it home with it.  I made it home that day without Dicky and cooked myself a pizza.  I almost dropped the pizza box into the recycle, but then I had a lightbulb moment.

“Dad?” I called out.

“Yes, Thomas?” He answered from his office.

“Does cold hurt computers?” I asked.

“What?  No, Thomas, I don’t think so.”

“Thanks, Dad”

“No problem.”

I slipped the laptop into the pizza box and put it in the freezer.

Chapter 1b - Dicky Other

I staggered into the house and headed toward the kitchen, where Mom was microwaving her dinner.

She turned toward me and asked, “Why were you so late today, Dicky?”  Her microwave beeped and she turned to get her meal.

“I went to Jesse’s house to get away from Tommy,” I replied as Dad entered the kitchen.

“Who’s Jesse?” Dad asked.

“Is it a girl?” Mom asked hopefully.

“Jesse’s a guy,” Tommy shouted from the TV room, “He’s been Dicky’s geek partner since, like, 3^rd grade.”

“Thanks Tom,” I said sarcastically.

“No Problem,” he shouted back.

“Oh… hmm” Mom sighed.

“What’s that?” Dad asked as I set down my backpack.

“Oh this?” Mom asked.  “It’s a protein bar.  My friend Martha…”

They weren’t going to ask me any more questions.  They didn’t seem to notice that my shirt was torn or that I was covered in cuts and bruises, so I ignored them.  I went toward the bathroom, walking through the TV room.  Tommy was lounging on the couch with a Coke in one hand and the video game controller in the other.  He hacked down several computer animated people while chugging his soda.  I continued to the bathroom and grabbed the band-aids and the Neosporin.

Tommy walked in and leaned on the wall as I sat on the edge of the tub to apply my bandages.  “Are you alright?” he asked.

“I guess, no thanks to you.”

“Did you think I was going to throw that rock at you?”

“Yes,” I said curtly.

“Wasn’t that a brilliant trick, though?”

I looked at him with his “innocent” little smile, thinking he was so smart, and I overflowed with anger. “If you’re fishing for a compliment on your little murder plot, you’re not going to get it from me, jerk.”

I turned back to my wounds.  I heard him moving nervously.  He drew in his breath like he was going to say something, but he just let it out in a sigh.

He left and I heard his video game fire back up, turned up much too loudly.  Then it turned off suddenly.

“Have you done your homework yet?” I heard Dad ask, but Tommy remained silent.  “Thomas…” started Dad.

“No Dad!  Will you leave me alone?” Tommy shouted.  He stormed past the bathroom and into our room, slamming the door behind him.

I came out of the bathroom and got my backpack.  I brought it to our room and set it under my desk.  “Tommy what did you have for supper?” I asked.

A muffled moan came from Tommy’s side of the room.  I put my hand on the curtain that divided our room to enter his side of the room.

“Pizza,” he replied.  “Go away,” his voice was a little hoarse, like it gets when he’s about to hit something, so I left.

Pizza sounded good so I went to the fridge.  I opened the freezer and stood back so I could see up there.  There was only one cheese pizza left, so I reached for it.  I noticed that it was already open.  “Oh great,” I thought, “Tommy ate my pizza.”  I put my hand under the opening and tilted the box, expecting a few crumbs and out slipped my laptop.

Go on to Chapter 2!